Water held a special fascination for Leonardo. He exerted unprecedented effort to disclosing the laws that govern its motion, also with the aim of realistically portraying its bursting impetus. This is witnessed by Leonardo's extraordinary drawings of watercourses and whirlpools, which are directly dependent on the ingenious experiments he devised for his studies of hydraulics.

Leonardo achieved important results in understanding phenomena such as hydraulic pressure and the behavior of currents as they encounter obstacles.